Orations (other than the Theological Orations) 38.1–38.16

Christ is born: give glory. Christ from heaven: go to meet him. Christ on earth: be lifted up. “Sing to the Lord, all the earth”; and, to say both in one, “Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad”, because of him who is heavenly, then earthly. Christ in the flesh: rejoice with trembling and with joy; with trembling because of sin, with joy because of hope. Christ from a virgin: women, live as virgins, that you may become mothers of Christ. Who does not worship him who is from the beginning? Who does not glorify him who is the last? [2] Again darkness is dispersed, again light is established; again Egypt is punished with darkness, again Israel is lit by a pillar. Let the people who sat in the darkness of ignorance see the great light of knowledge. “The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” The letter withdraws, the Spirit gains the advantage; the shadows run past, the truth comes in. Melchizedek is completed: he who was without mother becomes without father; without mother the first time, without father the second. The laws of nature are dissolved; the world above must be filled. Christ commands; let us not resist. “All you nations, clap your hands, for a child is born to us and a son is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder” (for it is lifted up with the cross), “and his name is called Angel of great counsel”, that of the Father. Let John cry, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” I too will cry out the power of the day: the fleshless is made flesh, the Word becomes thick, the invisible is seen, the intangible is touched, the timeless begins, the Son of God becomes Son of man, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and for ever”. Let Jews be offended, let Greeks mock, let heretics wag their tongues. They will believe when they see him ascending into heaven; and if not then, when they see him coming from heaven and sitting as judge.

These things later. The present feast is the Theophany, or Birthday; for it is called both, two names being given to one thing. For God appeared to men through birth: on the one hand being, and ever being, from him who ever is, beyond cause and reason (for there was no reason higher than the Word); on the other hand, coming to be later for our sake, that he who gave being might also bestow well-being; or rather, that when we had flowed away from well-being through vice, he might bring us back to it again through his incarnation. The name Theophany comes from his appearing, Birthday from his being born. [4] This is our festival, this we celebrate today: the coming of God to men, that we may go to dwell with God, or rather return (for so it is more proper to say); that, putting off the old man, we may put on the new; and as we died in Adam, so we may live in Christ, being born with Christ, crucified with him, buried with him and rising with him. For I must undergo the beautiful reversal: as painful things came from the better, so from the painful the better must return. “For where sin abounded, grace superabounded”; and if the tasting condemned, how much more did Christ's suffering justify! Therefore let us keep the feast, not as a public festival but divinely; not in a worldly way but above the world; not our own things, but the things of him who is ours, or rather of the Master; not the things of weakness, but those of healing; not those of the creation, but those of the re-creation.

How will this be? Let us not wreathe the doorways, nor organize dances, nor adorn the streets; let us not feast the eye, nor enchant the ear with pipes, nor make the sense of smell effeminate, nor prostitute the taste, nor gratify the touch, those ready roads to vice and entrances of sin. Let us not grow soft in clothing that is delicate and flowing, whose finest feature is its uselessness; nor with the sparkle of gems, nor the gleam of gold, nor the artifices of colours that falsify natural beauty and were invented against the image; nor with revelling and drunkenness, to which I know that debauchery and licentiousness are yoked, since the lessons of evil teachers are evil, or rather the crops of evil seeds are evil. Let us not set up high couches, making tents of luxury for the belly. Let us not prize the bouquet of wines, the tricks of cooks, the costliness of perfumes. Let not land and sea bring us as gifts the precious dung, for that is how I know to value luxury. Let us not strive to outdo one another in intemperance. For to me intemperance is everything superfluous and beyond need, and this while others are hungry and in want, who are of the same clay and the same composition.

But let us leave these things to the Greeks, and to Greek pomp and festivals; they give the name of gods to beings who delight in the savour of sacrifices, and consistently worship the divine with the belly, being evil makers, initiators and initiates of evil demons. But we, for whom the Word is the object of worship, if we must have some luxury, let it be in word …

… since not even for composite things is mere being …

The infinite is considered in two ways, with respect to beginning and to end (for what is beyond these and not within them is infinite). When the mind looks into the depth above, having nowhere to stand and rest in its imaginings about God, it calls the infinite and unapproachable there “without beginning”; when it looks into what is below and what follows, “immortal” and “imperishable”; and when it gathers the whole together, “eternal”. For eternity is neither time nor any part of time, since it is not measurable; but what time is for us, measured by the course of the sun, that eternity is for everlasting beings: something extended together with the things that are, like a kind of temporal motion and interval. Let this be enough of my philosophy about God for now. There is no occasion for more, since our subject is not theology but the economy. When I say God, I mean Father, Son and Holy Spirit: the Godhead neither spreading beyond these, lest we bring in a mob of gods, nor confined within less than these, lest we be condemned for a poverty of Godhead, either Judaizing because of the monarchy or Hellenizing because of the abundance. For the evil is alike in both, though found in opposites. Such, then, is the Holy of Holies, which is veiled even by the seraphim and glorified with three “holies”, meeting in one lordship and Godhead; this has been expounded most beautifully and loftily by another before us.

But since it was not enough for goodness to be moved only in the contemplation of itself, but the good had to be poured out and go forth, so that the objects of its benefaction might be more (for this belonged to the highest goodness), he first conceives the angelic and heavenly powers; and the conception was a deed, fulfilled by the Word and perfected by the Spirit. And so second splendours came to be, ministers of the first splendour: whether we should think of them as intelligent spirits, or as a kind of immaterial and bodiless fire, or as some other nature as near as possible to those named. I would like to say that they are immovable towards evil and have only the movement of the good, being around God and the first to be illumined from God (for things here have a second illumination); but I am persuaded to suppose and say that they are not immovable but hard to move, because of him who for his splendour was called Lucifer, but who through his pride both became and is called darkness, and the apostate powers under him, makers of evil by their flight from the good, and its promoters for us.

So, then, the intelligible world came to be for him, and for these reasons, so far as I at least can philosophize about these things, weighing great things with a small word. And since his first works were good, he conceives a second world, material and visible: this is the system and compound of heaven and earth and what lies between, praiseworthy for the fine nature of each part, still more praiseworthy for the harmony and concord of the whole, each part fitting well with another and all with all, to complete one world; that he might show that he was able to give being not only to a nature akin to himself but also to one wholly alien. For the intelligent natures, grasped by mind alone, are akin to the Godhead; wholly alien are those that fall under sense, and, still further removed among these, those that are wholly soulless and motionless. “But what is this to us?” perhaps one of the very festive and more eager might say. “Spur the colt to the turning post; philosophize to us about the feast and the things for which we have taken our seats today.” That I will do, even if I began a little far back, compelled by love and by the subject.

Mind, then, and sense, thus distinguished from one another, stood within their own bounds and bore in themselves the magnificence of the Creator Word, silent praisers and loud heralds of his mighty work. But there was not yet a mixture of both, nor any blending of opposites, a token of greater wisdom and of lavishness about the natures; nor was the whole wealth of his goodness yet known. Wishing to display this, the Word, the artist, creates man, one living being out of both, I mean the invisible and the visible nature. Taking the body from the matter that already existed, and placing in it breath from himself, which the word knows as the intelligent soul and the image of God, he sets him on the earth as a kind of second world, great in little, another angel, a worshipper of mixed nature, fully initiated into the visible creation, partly initiated into the intelligible, king of all on earth but ruled from above, earthly and heavenly, temporary and immortal, visible and intelligible, midway between greatness and lowliness; the same being spirit and flesh: spirit because of grace, flesh because of the elevation; the one that he may remain and glorify his Benefactor, the other that he may suffer, and by suffering be reminded and disciplined when he is ambitious about his greatness; a living being cared for here and transferred elsewhere, and, as the end of the mystery, deified by his inclination towards God. For to this, I think, the moderate light of truth here leads me: to see and to experience the splendour of God, worthy of him who both bound us together and will loose us, and will bind us again in a loftier way.

He placed him in paradise, whatever this paradise was, honouring him with free will, so that the good might belong to the one who chose it no less than to the one who provided its seeds: a cultivator of immortal plants, perhaps of divine thoughts, both the simpler and the more perfect; naked in his simplicity and artless life, without any covering or screen; for such it was fitting that he should be who was from the beginning. And he gives him a law, as material for his free will. The law was a commandment, which plants he might partake of and which he might not touch. This was the tree of knowledge, neither planted evilly from the beginning nor forbidden out of envy (let the enemies of God not wag their tongues in that direction, nor imitate the serpent), but good when partaken of at the right time; for the tree was, in my view, contemplation, which it is safe to undertake only for those of more perfect habit, but not good for those still simple and greedy in their desire, just as solid food is not profitable for those still tender and in need of milk. But when, through the envy of the devil and the injury done by the woman, which she suffered as the more tender and brought upon him as the more persuasive (alas for my weakness! for my forefather's weakness is mine), he forgot the commandment that had been given and was overcome by the bitter tasting, he became at once, through his wickedness, an exile from the tree of life, from paradise and from God; and he puts on the coats of skin, perhaps the coarser flesh, mortal and resistant; and now for the first time he knows his own shame and hides from God. Yet he gains something even here: death, and the cutting short of sin, so that evil might not be immortal; and the punishment becomes an act of love for man. For this, I am persuaded, is how God punishes.

He was first disciplined in many ways, because of the many sins which the root of evil put forth for various causes and at various times: by word, by law, by prophets, by benefits, by threats, by plagues, by floods, by fires, by wars, by victories, by defeats, by signs from heaven, signs from the air, from the earth, from the sea, by unexpected changes in men, cities and nations, by which the aim was to wipe out evil. At last he needs a stronger remedy for more terrible diseases: mutual slaughter, adulteries, perjuries, lust for males, and that last and first of all evils, idolatry, and the transfer of worship from the Maker to the creatures. Since these needed a greater help, they also obtain a greater. This was the very Word of God, the pre-eternal, the invisible, the incomprehensible, the bodiless, the beginning from the beginning, the light from light, the source of life and immortality, the impress of the archetypal beauty, the unmoved seal, the unchanging image, the Father's definition and word: he comes to his own image, and bears flesh for the sake of flesh, and is mingled with an intelligent soul for the sake of my soul, cleansing like by like; and he becomes man in all things except sin. He was conceived of the Virgin, who had first been cleansed in soul and flesh by the Spirit (for birth had to be honoured, and virginity honoured more), and he came forth God with what he had assumed, one out of two opposites, flesh and Spirit, of which the one deified and the other was deified. O new mingling! O strange blending! He who is comes to be, and the uncreated is created, and the uncontained is contained, through the mediation of an intelligent soul standing between the Godhead and the coarseness of flesh. And he who makes rich becomes poor: for he becomes poor in my flesh, that I may become rich in his Godhead. And he who is full is emptied: for he is emptied of his own glory for a little while, that I may share in his fullness. What is this wealth of goodness? What is this mystery concerning me? I received the image and did not keep it; he receives my flesh, to save the image and to make the flesh immortal. He enters into a second communion, far stranger than the first, inasmuch as then he gave a share in the better, while now he takes a share in the worse. This is more godlike than the first; this is loftier for those who have understanding.

To this what do the slanderers say to us, the bitter reckoners of the Godhead, the accusers of what is praiseworthy, those dark about the light, uninstructed about wisdom, for whom Christ died in vain, ungrateful creatures, the evil one's handiwork? Do you charge God with this, his benefaction? Is he small because he humbled himself for you? Because the good shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep, came to the straying one, upon the mountains and hills where you used to sacrifice, and found the straying one; and having found it, took it on his shoulders, on which he also bore the wood; and having taken it, brought it back to the life above; and having brought it back, numbered it with those who had stayed? Because he lit a lamp, his own flesh, and swept the house, cleansing the world of sin, and sought the coin, the royal image buried under the passions, and calls together his friends, the powers, at the finding of the coin, and makes them sharers of his joy, whom he had also made initiates of the economy? Because the surpassingly bright light follows the forerunning lamp, and the Word the voice, and the bridegroom the bridegroom's friend, who prepared for the Lord a people of his own and cleansed them beforehand by water for the Spirit? Do you charge God with these things? Do you think him lesser for this, because he girds himself with a towel and washes his disciples' feet and shows that the best way to exaltation is humility? Because he humbles himself for the sake of the soul bent down to the ground, that he may lift up with himself what is bowed down by sin? And how is it you do not accuse him of this too, that he eats with tax collectors and at tax collectors' tables, and makes tax collectors his disciples, that he too may gain something? Gain what? The salvation of sinners. Unless one should blame a physician for stooping over sores and putting up with bad smells to give health to the sick; or one who out of compassion leans over a pit to save, as the law commands, the beast that has fallen into it.

He was sent, but as man, for he was twofold; since he also grew weary, and hungered and thirsted and was in agony and wept, by the law of the body. But if he was sent as God too, what of it? Consider the sending to be the good pleasure of the Father, to whom he refers his own actions, both honouring the timeless principle and so as not to seem to be opposed to God. For he is said to have been given up, but it is also written that he gave himself up; and that he was raised by the Father and taken up, but also that he raised himself and ascended again: the former belong to the good pleasure, the latter to the authority. But you speak of what lessens him and pass over what exalts him; you take account of his suffering but do not add that it was willing. What the Word suffers even now! By some he is honoured as God and confused; by others he is dishonoured as flesh and severed. With which will he be more angry? Or rather, which will he forgive: those who wrongly confuse, or those who cut apart? For the former should have divided, and the latter united: the former in number, the latter in Godhead. Do you stumble at the flesh? So did the Jews. Or do you call him a Samaritan too, and the rest, which I will pass over in silence? Do you disbelieve his Godhead? Not even the demons did this, O you more unbelieving than demons and more senseless than Jews! The Jews took the title “Son” as an expression of equal honour; the demons knew that he who drove them out was God, for they were convinced by what they suffered. But you neither accept the equality nor confess the Godhead. It would have been better for you to be circumcised and possessed by a demon, if I may say something even laughable, than to be uncircumcised and healthy but in a wicked and godless state. … [17] … Honour little Bethlehem, which has led you back to paradise; worship the manger, through which you, who were without reason, were fed by the Word. “Know, like the ox, your owner,” Isaiah bids you, “and, like the ass, the manger of your Lord”; whether you are one of the clean, under the law, chewing the cud of the word and fit for sacrifice, or one of those until now unclean, not to be eaten or sacrificed, of the gentile portion. Run with the star, and bring gifts with the Magi, gold and frankincense and myrrh, as to a king, as to God, and as to one who died for you. Glorify with the shepherds, sing with the angels, dance with the archangels. Let it be a common festival of the heavenly and earthly powers. For I am persuaded that they too rejoice and keep festival with us today, since they love man and love God, like those whom David brings in going up with Christ after the passion, coming to meet him and bidding one another lift up the gates.

One thing among the events of Christ's birth you must hate: Herod's slaughter of the children. Or rather, revere this too, the sacrifice of those of Christ's own age, offered before the new victim. If he flees into Egypt, gladly share his flight: it is a fine thing to flee with Christ when he is persecuted. If he lingers in Egypt, call him out of Egypt, where he is worshipped well. Pass blamelessly through all the ages and powers of Christ, as Christ's disciple. Be purified, be circumcised, strip off the veil that has been on you from your birth. After this, teach in the temple, drive out those who traffic in divine things; be stoned, if you must suffer this: you will escape those who throw, I know well, and pass through the midst of them, as God; for the Word is not stoned. If you are brought before Herod, do not answer for the most part: he will respect your silence more than the long speeches of others. If you are scourged, ask for what they leave out. Taste gall for the sake of the tasting; be given vinegar to drink; seek spitting, accept blows and buffets; be crowned with thorns, the harshness of the life according to God; put on the scarlet robe, accept the reed, be worshipped by those who mock the truth; finally, be crucified with him, die with him, be buried with him gladly, that you may also rise with him and be glorified with him and reign with him, seeing God as far as he is, and being seen by him, who is worshipped and glorified in the Trinity, whom we pray may even now be made clear to us, as far as is attainable by those bound by the flesh, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory for ever. Amen.